In our modern age that opposition has almost always come from the Left. Rightists and reactionaries have virtually without fail acted as the enforcers of capital, as it’s guard dogs and in some cases even as it’s saviors or assassins.

NEW RESISTANCE is just that – a NEW RESISTANCE. But we’d be negligent not to explore what lessons, methods, and ideas the “old resistance” – the Left – has met success with. What truths have they uncovered? Where did they hit roadblocks and fail?

All questions we’ve been exploring for quite some time now.

Which brings us to the requests we’ve received for a New Resistance reading list.

In the spirit of education over instruction, we’ve decided to offer what we’ve “Learned from the Left” in the form of revolutionary book recommendations, as Part 1 of our New Resistance Reading List. It comes attached with a comradely suggestion that these books be approached with a open mind (but not TOO open), maturity and discretion. You’ll encounter some small liberalism best to be ignored while focusing your attention on revolutionary content instead. Feel free to consider the ability to discern between the two as a intelligence test of sorts. Those who fail will be encouraged to head “Right” where idiocy is embraced as the norm.

Part 2 to follow shortly covering NR, the Fourth Political Theory, NB and traditionalism.

NEW RESISTANCE

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THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
– by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engles
It all starts here.. Imperfect but still essential to understand the crisis of capitalism.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
-by V.I. Lenin
Lenin’s important treatise on organizational strategy, emphasizing the important role of the vanguard party in shaping and directing the revolutionary consciousness of the people.

ROSA LUXEMBURG:A LIFE
-by Elzbieta Ettinger
Luxembourg was an important corrective to Lenin, bringing a humane, civilized, pan-European perspective to the revolutionary communist movement. If she had not been murdered by German reactionaries, the course of the Bolshevik Revolution might have taken a more gentle course due to her influence (i.e. no gulags).

JEAN THIRIART AND THE EUROPEAN NATIONAL COMMUNITARIANISM
-by Yannick Sauveur
Perhaps a controversial inclusion on this list but we think it fits. Thiriart layed out and fought for a non-Marxist, socially just and anti-imperialist “national” communism. If you can find a copy grab it fast – this book is relatively rare.

THE MANY-HEADED HYDRA:SAILORS, SLAVES, COMMONERS, AND THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ATLANTIC
By Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker
A sprawling, swashbuckling account of the “Atlantic proletariat” in colonial times, illustrating both the early outlines of global capitalism and its feisty opposition (poor whites, runaway slaves, pirates, Irish rebels, Indian warriors, radical religious sects, etc…-all united in struggle!)

FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS: OR INDUSTRY COMBINED WITH AGRICULTURE AND BRAIN WORK WITH MANUAL WORK
-by Peter Kropotkin
A wonderful series of essays by the Russian anarchist thinker Kropotkin explaining his vision of a cooperative, decentralized economy based on small farms and workshops, rather than large industry. Especially relevant in our age of ecological and economic breakdown.

PROFIT OVER PEOPLE:NEOLIBERALISM & GLOBAL ORDER
– by Noam Chomsky
Chomsky exposes the neoliberal ideology – the belief in the supremacy of “free” markets to drive and govern human affairs – both in it’s present diabolic form and in it’s sordid history. He follows twith a analysis of possible methods of resistance.

CHE GUEVARA: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE
– by Jon Lee Anderson
The incredible life of the revolutionary political soldier Ernesto Che Guevara. Reads like a action movie if the star were a guerilla warfare waging socialist champion of the world’s oppressed.

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE
-by Naomi Klein
An important leftist critique of ‘free market’ ideology and how it operates around the world, destroying nations in a never-ending quest for more short-term profits. This is a chilling book, exposing the sociopath nature of the “economic royalists” who rule our global economy. Essential reading!

FROM RED TO GREEN
-by Rudolf Bahro
Bahro was a massively underappreciated East German dissident communist who was later slandered by fellow leftists for being a “eco-fascist” (a view reinforced by a simplistic write-up in Alvin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock’). In reality, Bahro offered some of the most nuanced thinking one can find on deep ecology and eco-regionalism, on the role of religion and community in a post industrial world, and how a federation of regions can replace ‘vertical nationalism’.

PLENITUDE: THE NEW ECONOMICS OF TRUE WEALTH
-by Juliet B. Schor
A practical and non-dogmatic study of sustainable, green economics & new technology and how we can redefine outdated notions of “wealth” and “work” to create a society where humans do, indeed, matter.

REVEILLE FOR RADICALS
-by Saul Alinsky
Alinsky was the Machiavelli of the radical Democratic left, a master at organizing diverse coalitions and mass movements. REVEILLE FOR RADICALS, along with his later RULES FOR RADICALS, provides powerful real-life anecdotes on the do-and-don’ts of “community organizing” in North America. Regardless of what you think of Alinsky and his politics, these texts are essential for any militant with ambitions of mobilizing large segments of the population.

CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA AND THE NEW LATIN AMERICA: AN INTERVIEW WITH HUGO CHAVEZ
-by Aleida Guevara and Hugo Chavez.
Hugo Chavez interviewed by Che’s daughter, Aleida. No better introduction to the Bolivarian Revolution and 21st Century Socialism. Chavez’s ideas are presented in his own words clearly and fiercely.

SOCIALISM AND THE IRISH REVOLUTION: WRITINGS FROM JAMES CONNOLLY
-by James Connolly
A socialist, a nationalist and a participant in armed insurrection James Connolly’s influence spanned from his beloved Ireland to America to Russia and beyond. It still continues.

QUOTATIONS OF CHAIRMAN MAO
by Mao Tse-Tung,
The handbook of Mao Tse-Tung Thought considered by many to be today’s most advanced form of communism.

THE RED ARMY FACTION, A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY VOLUME 1 PROJECTILES FOR THE PEOPLE
-by J. Smith (Editor)
The inside history of the Red Army Faction, with all of its communiqués and manifestos. The RAF were, in many ways, prototype National Revolutionaries – and some key RAF cadres are now active in European National Revolutionary circles today.

SANDINISTA: CARLOS FONSENCA AND THE NICARAGUAN REVOLUTION
– by Matilde Zimmermann
Biography of Carlos Fonseca Amador, the legendary commander of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua (the FSLN), a leading revolutionary light of his time.

REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE
– by Georges Sorel
“Dangerous and fascinating” . Violence as a solution to the corrupt politics of bourgeois democracy.

THE COMING INSURRECTION
– by The Invisible Committee
The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for a revolutionary force capable of “spreading anarchy and live communism.” A call to arms, and a call to theft, to sabotage and to refuse to work this book scared the pigs so badly the French government jailed one of it’s alleged authors for it’s content!

THE ANTONIO GRAMSCI READER: .SELECTED WRITINGS 1916-1935
-by Antonio Gramsci
Gramsci was one of the most important theorists of class, culture, and the state since Marx. To become a master of the culture (and counter-culture) war studying Gramsci is a must.

FIGHT CLUB: A Novel
-by Chuck Palahniuk
Protocol dictates no summary here. After all the First Rule of Fight Club is that we don’t talk about Fight Club. Or so we’re told.